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Recent Ramblings

Not so Gung-Ho this time

As predicted, I totally failed at keeping with the writing. In spite of the enthusiasm and spirit of my previous entry, I let everything else get in the way again. I suppose that since I’m back here, about 25 days later, that it’s an improvement over my previous drought. I may actually be getting back in the swing, its just not so finite a starting point as I’d envisioned.

So, what, exactly has been keeping me away? A lot, actually. No, wait, that’s a lie. A lot has been preoccupying my mind as always but life is no more busy than usual. I am trying to be more responsible with regularly doing more thing. I actually went out to a friend’s place the other day and we’re going to start getting back in shape together! Or so we’ve claimed. The good new is, we have reconnected and I think there’s a subtle understanding between us when I was there the other day. Simple and unspoken but genuinely shared.

I’m actually going out drinking tomorrow night with him and my other buddy. I know, right? Not my style usually but all the nighttime hours I’ve spent on my own has made me realize I can spend far too many unproductive hours on my own. It actually has me appreciating people again. My new job keeps me very secluded and from anyone I would consider a peer in both interest and intellect. That’s added to my appreciation for people as well.

But mostly, I just know I need to change. I don’t know why I know this, and I go back and forth with myself as to the reasons, but I just fundamentally know I need to start regularly doing stuff. I don’t know exactly what that stuff is yet. Actually, I do know- accomplishments. I’ve been trying to reward myself with little victories and it’s been an awesome year of doing so. I’m now able to file my nails down and smooth them out! Still have a hard time not giving the occasional cuticle a little nibble though. Regardless, my nails are growing super healthily now and I’ve not chewed on a finger in ages. I’m brushing my teeth daily now, and twice daily on most days. Not to mention regular showering and yard work. Did I mention that I even got excited when I thought of getting a window treatment to block the incredible amount of sunlight streaming in in the mornings from the arch window above our front door? I got so excited that I actually went out with my wife specifically to go get and install it, and I did. All my idea. So very unlike me.

Been fighting with the wife more often than usual. I think it’s because her hormones have been all over the place since her hysterectomy, but I honestly think she’s just grown tired of my shit. Constant looks of disapproval and annoyance and cutting phrases she noticeably bites her tongue from saying. We fight. We used to be the couple that didn’t do that. I don’t yell, and keep super calm and try and deescalate the conversation the entire time but it’s no use once she’s revved up. Anyone reading this is probably taking this with a grain of salt, and maybe they should, but I swear the entire time I’m simply trying to say “Umm, that’s not what I said, or where I was going with that”. In the end she says that it’s probably nothing, bad timing, I didn’t wake her up right, it was the wrong time of day, we shouldn’t talk about that topic in that way. Whatever the reason, we’re fighting. And when we’re not fighting, she’s finding more and more ways to be elsewhere. She gets up super early now, might make breakfast, then jets off to ride horses then not be home until mid-afternoon. I see her a couple hours in the morning. If I’m off, I’ll see her from the time I get up around 3pm until she goes to bed around 10:30 since she gets up so early most days. I always figured when I switched to full nights she’d at least keep the previous midnight-2am bedtime she did when I worked til 2 but the opposite is true.

That’s probably why I started trying to do anything to accomplish something I can show her. I’m also having to just learn to be comfortable completely alone a lot. I try to talk to her about concepts and ideas but everything I say is met with an eyeroll. It’s either stupid or unrealistic or doesn’t work the way I’m saying, regardless of what I’m talking about. Having such a strongly externalized critic has really motivated me to prove her wrong. The problem is, I hate her for it and I’m not lying when I say that it’s changed the way I feel towards her and diminished the connection I feel with her. You can’t take back the hurtful things you say. Not ever. They change the DNA somehow. Some things, you just can’t come back from. That isn’t to say divorce, it’s just that you cannot be infatuated and think the sun and the stars are hung by someone who gives you a disapproving look daily. And that’s nonverbal. The words that were said had lots of staying power too.

I’m guessing that I’m to blame somehow as well. I’ve spent hours poring over the fights and miscommunications throughout the night while I absorb content, and have yet to glean any insight as to what I’ve done wrong or could have done better. But that’s because before each fight I carefully plan out the whole thing, to try and avoid any fight at all. For hours beforehand. Then it fails anyway and I go over it again for hours that night too. I tried just winging it and trying to not plan but that was immediately disastrous every time whereas the other method at least occasionally yielded a net neutral nor even slightly net positive outcome in the end.

Work called me in for a 7am-330pm shift this morning. I usually sleep from 10am-2pm. This is going to be horrible but at least it’s overtime unlike my old job. Oh well, the worst I’ll be is tired but at least I’ll have a little extra in the bank out of it. I guess I really needed to talk tonight. Probably why I was successfully able to will myself to sit down. I don’t really have anyone to talk to anymore, truth be told. I don’t see anyone at work anymore, and I had friends from 6 years all around the building but they’re all on day shift so I don’t even see them in. My best friend of nearly two decades and I fell apart last year and I doubt we’ll ever reconnect in any meaningful way. My brother I only really see one of his days off a week. Like I said before, my wife is always off doing something somewhere and seldom home and not busy for long. We did play games together the other night but it was very short lived as she went to bed early. I guess it’s not really early for her anymore, she just goes to bed at what I consider an unnecessarily early hour. So, I’ve reconnected with my old meathead geek friend. And we’re going out drinking. And I’m trying to write more. Hey, maybe I really am on the Writer’s Journey: seclusion, depression, isolation, and alcohol. Maybe the universe will make a true writer of me yet.